Unforgiven
by Gertrude-04
Summary: Post Asylum. Anything that can chip concrete from fifteen feet would wreak havoc on a person. Dean's injuries become critical. Rated for language and later imagery. Chapter five is up! Lord, I must be maturing.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: So I'm a littled hooked on Supernatural. I can't get enough of it. One of the best shows I've seen in a while. More like a collection of movies than an hour long drama.

Anyways, I watched Asylum for the first time since it was aired a couple of days ago, and a few things occured to me. When the blond girl (whose name I've forgotten) shoots at Dean, the rock salt takes chunks out of the concrete wall. And that was from a distance of ten or fifteen feet. When Sam shoots Dean, he's probably not even three feet away. My rational for this story is that anything that can damage concrete from fifteen feet would wreak havoc on someone's chest from three feet. I hope everyone enjoys this, because I actually have it planned out, rather than my usual 'fly by the seat of my pants' procedure.

Also, anyone who would be interested in doing some beta-ing, please drop me a line. I would greatly appreciate it.

* * *

The tension in the Impala is thick enough to cut with a knife.

The heavy weight of a half-assed apology hangs between them, but neither will acknowledge it. Even the radio is uncharacteristically silent.

Dean drives with a sort of reckless abandon that might've been mistaken for anger, if not for the lines around his eyes and mouth. He throws the classic car into a left-handed turn, all four tires squealing in protest and the left hand side nearly lifting off the road. Sam clutches the granny handle above his window, but doesn't otherwise protest. He knows where his complaints will likely be shoved.

Their motel is located ten minutes away from the asylum, and for this Sam is grateful. This kind of driving makes him nervous, when it seems as if Dean is taking out some kind of unexpressed aggression on his car's steering and shock absorbers, rather than the rightful target; his brother, conveniently sitting two feet to his right. Sam wants to talk about this, he knows how unresolved issues can fester, become infected. But with his brother's rather intense aversion to any sort of emotional expression, he knows that is about as likely as Dean trading his Impala in for a minivan.

A chorus of car horns blares at them as Dean cuts off traffic to pull into the motel's parking lot. He stops the car with a lurch, pockets the keys and levers himself out of the drivers seat. Sam watches his brother lurch towards their room, unlock it, and push the door open, leaving it open behind him.

He takes this as a good sign. If Dean were really angry, in the kind of way that Sam has only seen a few times, he would've slammed the door as soon as he was on the other side of it, expecting Sam to spend the night exactly where he's sitting.

Sam waits another few minutes, then grabs the first aid kit before heading inside himself. The door to the bathroom is already closed; Sam can hear the water running inside as Dean heats up the shower. He hesitates briefly before pressing his ear against the door and knocking gently.

"Dean? I got the first aid kit."

He hears a hiss of pain from inside, then a grunt of acknowledgement.

"I'll go get us some dinner, okay?"

Dean doesn't reply, so Sam grabs his wallet off the nightstand, where he left it before they headed to the asylum. He doesn't have a lot of money left, but Dean's taste in food isn't exactly high society, and Sam's not hungry to begin with.

He heads to the diner at the end of the block on foot, stopping at a convenience store to replenish the first aid supplies Dean's certainly using. The cashier gives him a strange look when he dumps three bottles of aspirin, two boxes of gauze and three tubes of antibacterial cream on the counter, but she packs it up in a little plastic bag, and Sam uses half his money to pay for it.

With most of the other half, he gets Dean a root beer, large carton of fries, and a cheeseburger with onions and mustard, but no ketchup. Just the way he likes it. The man behind the counter packs it up carefully, spares Sam the strange look, and sends him on his way with a 'have a good night.'

Sam considers it a supernatural feat of self-control that he didn't snort sarcastically at the man's words.

The lights are already out when he gets back; Dean is buried underneath the comforter of the farthest bed, on his back with his head turned away, holding fistfuls of blanket in both hands. Sam finds something upsetting in the way he's sleeping, or at least pretending to. He looks entirely too vulnerable for the man that goes barreling into bad situations with both guns blazing.

"Dean?" If he is truly asleep, Sam doesn't want to wake him. But he didn't walk around the block and spend his last forty dollars to have the food get cold and congeal. "Dean?"

There's no visible reply, and if he isn't really sleeping he's doing a damn good job of playing.

Sam sets the bag of food down on the night table, in case his brother wakes up hungry in the middle of the night. He keeps the root beer for himself.

In the bathroom, he closes the door behind him before turning on the light. Dean apparently went to great pains to clean up after himself; the first aid kit is resting on the sink's edge, but if Sam didn't know better, he wouldn't have been certain it had been used at all. The area around the shower is dry; his towel is hanging on the towel rack. But the small wicker garbage basket is nearly over flowing with bandage wrappers and bloody gauze. Sam feels the colour drain from his face as he realizes just how much work Dean had to do on himself. He hadn't held any disillusions about the amount of damage a shell full of rock salt fired from a shotgun could do to a person. But Dean himself had been so quick to shrug off the pain that Sam had soon found himself doing the same thing, despite every instinct that was screaming at him not to.

He sees a hint of purplish-gray in the bottom, and reaches inside, past the bloodied gauze and bandages and wrappers. And touches cotton. He pulls out a t-shirt, the same t-shirt Dean had been wearing earlier that day. It's damp, but he stretches it out on the tile, and smoothes it gently with his hands. It's hardly recognizable as a t-shirt any longer. The shotgun blast tore away most of the material, the edges of the holes stained red with blood and white with the residue of the rock salt.

Sam feels his knees go weak, and he falls hard on his ass. If this is what his shirt looks like, Sam thinks, than how much damage did his chest take?

He puts the shirt back in the bottom of the basket. If Dean doesn't want to deal with this, then Sam will indulge him for the time being. He knows that by pushing him, Dean will only clam up, and withdraw so far into himself that Sam will never see him again.

He brushes his teeth with shaking hands.

In the main room, he checks on Dean one more time, spends a few minutes watching his chest and fall with regularity. Once satisfied with his brother's health, he steps out of his jeans, pulls his shirt over his head and climbs into bed.

* * *

'_Following orders like a good little soldier? Are you that desperate for his approval?'_

_'I've got a mind of my own. I'm not pathetic, like you.'_

The pain in his chest and head is excruciating, but nothing that compares to the pure undiluted hate he can see in his brother's eyes. The twisted expression of loathing seems like it doesn't belong on Sam's face, but his moss green eyes are clear, and Dean knows _this _is his brother. The words he is throwing like projectiles that hit more painfully and leave scars deeper than bullets belong to no one but Sam. There is no other force, no supernatural presence making his brother say these things. He says them because he believes them, and Dean thinks maybe his inner voice was right all these years. Maybe he isn't worth the bother, the love, that his own loved ones seem reluctant to give him. Maybe this is why everyone ends up leaving him.

Sam produces a gun from somewhere, flicks off the safety, and points it at his brother. Dean wants to say something, wants to beg him not to do it, because a part of him knows that this gun is loaded, and one shot will be enough. The words don't come; his throat has frozen, whether in fear, or sadness he doesn't know.

A figure appears over Sam's shoulder, and Dean immediately recognizes his father. He manages to catch his dad's eye, silently imploring him to step in and save his son.

_'But I am saving my son,' _Jonathon Winchester says, laying a hand gently, almost reverently on Sam's shoulder. '_All you ever were to me was a soldier to command. And you failed at that, didn't you?'_

Sam adjusts the gun in his hands, takes up the shooter's stance that Dean himself taught him so many years ago. A smirk plays across his lips.

_'Sorry, big brother. I wish I could say I'll miss you.' _And he pulls the trigger.

His eyes snap open, a strangled gasp coming from his lips before he has the presence of mind to clamp it down. His heart is trying to break through his rib cage, battering so hard against the inside of him that he is nearly rocking with the force of it.

The water stained ceiling above him grounds him, helps remind that it's over and done with, the asylum and what happened inside is behind them and forgotten. Except he can't forget. When he presses the heels of his hands against his eyes, the image of his brother's hate filled eyes comes unbidden, as clearly as a photograph taken with a digital camera.

He swings his legs to the side, and lurches awkwardly to a sitting position. Sam is sleeping peacefully in the other bed, snoring softly and looking so comfortable one would never guess he suffered from such horrible nightmares.

A part of Dean wants to wake him up, shake him until he's coherent and paying attention, enough to see how this thing between them is _killing _him with doubt and self-loathing. He wants Sam to hurt as much as he does, to know the kind of inner turmoil he feels, trying to sort through all the things they have said to each other, and learned about each other in just these six months that the previous eighteen years hadn't taught them.

How much harder is it going to get? He wonders silently, if this is how bad they are after a half a year. Is the cost to them even worth finding their dad? How much of them is Dean willing to spend for the man that left him to begin with, and will probably do again, if given the chance?

He bends forward at the waist, and buries his face in his hands. He's never been a man prone to self-flagellation, but these are hardly ordinary circumstances. In the past, he would cast off these doubting thoughts, and simply move forward, without giving in to the urge to glance in the rear-view mirror. But Sam doesn't let him do that. Sam is the sensitive one, always seeing what Dean wants to hide, always asking about what should remain buried. Always making him face what he'd rather run away from.

He stands, and heads to the bathroom. Unless Sam moved it, the first aid kit should still be sitting on the sink.

The fluorescent light overhead reflects off the white tiling when he flicks it on, and his headache from earlier comes back with a vengeance. Sam's toothbrush is sitting on the ledge above the sink, the only difference Dean can see since he was in earlier. When he was cleaning the wounds on his chest under the shower spray, pounding his fist against the tiled wall so he wouldn't cry out in agony. He'd been hurt pretty bad in the past, but the injuries inflicted by a shotgun at near point blank range, even one loaded with rock salt, rivaled anything he'd had done to himself in the past.

He knocks back a couple of ibuprofen, more than willing to sacrifice a little clarity of thinking in exchange for a good night's sleep.

Back in the main room, Sam snores on. The urge to wake him up has passed, and now Dean can only feel a strange kind of relief that one of them is sleeping soundly. And regardless of how he feels about what happened earlier that day, he knows his brother deserves uninterrupted rest for at least one night.

He lowers himself carefully onto his back, and pulls the covers over his chest. He doesn't want to go back to sleep, to revisit those images like he almost assuredly will. But he's so _tired._ Weeks spent on the road, hunting and fighting, stumbling around this newfound relationship he and his brother share, have all slowly but steadily drained his energy until he could barely lift his head from the pillow.

He sighs softly, and forces his body to relax against the mattress. In seconds, with the aid of the medication, he's asleep.

* * *

Unsurprisingly, it's Sam who wakes up first, to the first light of morning shining in through the curtains, playing with the shadows across his face. He props himself up on his elbows, wiping the sleep from his eyes.

He's so unaccustomed to sleeping soundly that for a minute he thinks he's still dreaming. It wouldn't be unlike his sub-conscious to play such a nasty trick. But the paper bag from the diner is still sitting on the night table between the beds, looking suspiciously untouched with spots of grease showing through the bottom.

He sits up a little straighter, brushing the hair from his face and peering into the next bed. Dean appears to be dead to the world, sleeping in the same position he was when Sam returned the night before.

A part of Sam wants to wake him up, shake him until he's coherent and paying attention, enough to see how this thing between them is _killing _him with doubt and self-loathing. But regardless of what his brother might think, Sam is painfully aware of the nightmare that had awoken Dean halfway through the night. He woke up to his older brother's panicked breathing, mumbling under his breath. He had watched while Dean had snapped awake, heart racing so fast Sam could see his pulse beating franticly at the base of his neck. It doesn't matter how badly he wants talk about what happened; Sam knows how important even an hour of dreamless sleep can be.

He rises as quietly as he can, moving with the preternatural swiftness and stealth their father taught them at such a young age. He forgoes a shower, deciding that it would be too noisy, and he would rather save the hot water for his brother. He takes a leak, brushes his teeth, and after pulling on jeans, a t-shirt and his running shoes, heads out to pick up some breakfast.

He only has one bill and a handful of change left from his purchases the night before, so he hits the variety store. The selection of fruit isn't half bad for a store on the highway, nestled in between a strip joint and a pet store; he picks up a banana and a granny smith apple, the only types of fruit Dean will eat. A box of chocolate pop tarts, a jug of orange juice, and a tin of instant coffee fill up his basket, and he barely as enough money to cover it.

Back in the motel room, Dean is still asleep, which brings a strange amount of relief to Sam. He knows that as long as his brother remains sleeping, the "Oprah moment" they now both fear cannot take place. As much as Sam wants to rid them of this horrible tension, he is not looking forward to explain to Dean why he said the things he did when he was …possessed by Ellicott's spirit. He already knows Dean doesn't believe that he didn't mean any of it, and due to Dean's own stubbornness (he is, after all, where Sam himself learned to be so tenacious and bull-headed) it will be that much harder to prove otherwise to him.

He quietly unloads the food onto the small table against the far wall, and rather than partake in any of it, decides to refill the first aid kit. He replaces the gauze and bandages that Dean used, and stuffs the new bottles of painkillers he bought earlier into it. It's bulging a little when he's done, but he feels better knowing it's stocked, and is certain Dean will reflect that sentiment.

But once that's done, there's nothing left for him to do. As long as Dean stays stubbornly asleep, there's no one to talk to, no one to bed forgiveness from, or apologize to. So he lies back in his own bed, and flicks the motel room's television on, keeping the volume muted. It's been so long since he's had access to cable that for a good ten minutes, he can do nothing but channel surf until he finally settles on a station dedicated to cartoons. The kind of cartoons he was raised with, he and his brother camping out in different motel rooms eating dinner by the glowing light of the television. He allows his eyes to fall closed, lulled into a sense of peace by memories of the safety he found in his brother's company.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Thanks for all the feedback on this! I'm so glad everyone liked it, and I hope this chapter doesn't disappoint.

A huge shout-out and many thanks to Monica, for a fabulous beta job.

Dean sleeps a lot in this chapter, because let's face it, he's pretty thrashed. More Dean-speak coming in later chapters.

* * *

It's the coughing that wakes him up. He'd managed to fall asleep a second time, and had actually dreamt without revisiting that damp, mold infested room of his nightmares before he is yanked out of it by painful spasms in his chest.

After he regains control of his body, Dean has the presence of mind to know that the sharp pain that accompanies each breath can't be indicative of anything good, but he can't bring himself to think any further on the subject. Worrying about his health is not one of his favourite past times. Not like it is Sam's, anyway.

"Are you all right?"

'_Speak of the devil…'_

In the darkness of their room, he can see Sam half-sitting in his own bed, backlit by the light of the street lamps coming in through the curtains. Dean clears his throat, and rubs his chest with a grimace, because it's dark enough that his brother wouldn't be able to see his discomfort.

"Fine," he says, and damn him if his voice sounds like steel wool rubbing against sandpaper.

Sam kicks his covers off, and walks over to the room's only table without a sound.

'_He's getting it back…' _Dean thinks quietly as he watches his brother rout through some plastic bags. He had worried when they'd first been reunited all those months ago. Although Sam's mind is as sharp as ever, if possible made more efficient from his time at Stanford, his hunting abilities had fallen into disrepair. Dean was relieved Sam could still fight, but he had lost some of the skills their father had engrained in them so young. Like how to walk without making a sound. Dean has been noticing Sam gradually relearn all that he had let go to the wayside, because, really, who needs to skulk around at Stanford? Only cheaters, or thieves, and his brother is neither of those.

"Drink this," Sam says, coming to Dean's bedside and handing him a chipped porcelain mug.

Dean eyes his brother and the mug with equal parts suspicion. "What is it?" he asks, as though he actually fears his younger brother might try to poison him.

Sam is quite perceptive, though, and even in the dark he catches the attention before Dean can rescind it. "Fuck you, Dean," he says, because he's tired, and guilty, and more worried than he would ever admit. He can see the lines of pain in his brother's face, regardless of how good Dean is at hiding it. He rolls his eyes, and plunks the mug down on the night table, sloshing some of the liquid over the top. "It's orange juice. Take it if you want it. I was gonna put rat poison in it, but we're plumb out."

He flops back into bed, and hauls the covers over his lean body.

Dean recognizes the sarcastic tone in Sam's voice, but he knows that while Sam wasn't serious, he wasn't exactly joking either. The words come from a place where Sam fears his older brother might actually think he wants to kill him, and instead of speaking rationally about it, like he often urges Dean, he lashes out with poorly disguised sarcasm. Too bad for him Dean is damn good at reading people in general, and his brother specifically.

"I thought it was cough syrup," Dean says, because as much as he hates dealing with a pissy Sam, he doesn't want the youngest Winchester to think he actually fears him. Dean has put his life in Sam's hands before, and he would do so again, without hesitation. It's the biggest reason why he went to Stanford so many months ago, for help trying to find their father.

He drinks the orange juice, and though the acidity stings on the way down, when he's finished he feels halfway back to normal. If he ignores the pain in his chest that comes with every breath, that is.

"Sam, I'm not afraid of you," Dean says, when there's nothing else to say and the silence begins to get to him. He knows his brother isn't asleep in the other bed; more likely he's rehashing all the events from earlier that day, trying to figure out where he went wrong. "I trust you with my life."

The words seem to have an effect, because he hears a sharp intake of air from the other side of the room.

And with that, Dean settles back in the bed, sighing softly and willing sleep to return. They're painfully close to turning this into a chick flick moment, and that is something he is definitely not in the mood for. Sam says something that sounds suspiciously like "I love you too, jerk" but Dean's eyes are already starting to close, and try as he might he can't stop them.

* * *

There's blood on his pillow when he wakes up. Not a lot, just a few drops, but given that he has no wounds on his face or head, it's enough to spike a little worry in him. He flips over the pillow to hide the stain.

"Morning, sunshine," Sam says, upon coming out of the bathroom, toweling his hair dry and seeing his brother's eyes open. "How are you feeling?"

The truth is obviously not an option, so Dean drudges up a partial smile from somewhere, and shrugs one shoulder, the one not beginning to throb as he sits there. "I could use some coffee."

He starts to get up, and the resulting pain is so sharp and so sudden that he can't help but gasp with it. Nothing if not stubborn, Dean levers himself into a sitting position, and manages not to scream with the agony that rips through his torso. He wonders dimly if he just settled sore, or if this is some kind of indication of something worse, because there's no way he hurt this bad last night.

Sam is by his side in an instant, splaying one warm hand between Dean's shoulder blades. He can feel his brother's heart racing through the thin t-shirt he's wearing. "Are you okay?"

Dean takes a breath, ignores the sharp pain that accompanies it, and lets it out slowly. He wants to smack Sam upside the head, so hard his eyeballs fall out and roll across the dirty floor like a pair of errant marbles. If he were okay, there's no way he would be leaning against his brother like he is.

"Gimme a minute," he whispers, because any louder is too much of an effort for his energy store.

Sam says nothing, but begins to rub Dean's back, slow concentric circles like Dean himself used to do, when they were younger and Sam had been ripped from sleep by nightmares of people on fire.

After a long few minutes, the pain begins to fade until it's nothing more than a dull ache settled deep in his chest. Every breath brings a sharp reminder of just what happened the day earlier, so Dean keeps his breaths shallow and slow. His hands have clenched into fists around the sheets pooled at his waist; he forces them to relax, and places them on his knees to hold himself up. Sam recognizes the move, and sits back, allowing his brother to support himself.

"Ibuprofen?" Dean asks.

The word isn't even finished leaving his mouth before Sam is racing to the bathroom to fetch the painkillers. He fills the same chipped mug from the night before with orange juice, and hands it to Dean with three white pills in his other hand.

Dean swallows them with a grimace, and Sam takes the now empty mug from his slack hand before it falls and breaks on the floor.

"Dean, maybe you should go to the hospital," he says, chewing worriedly on the corner of his lip. He can't remember a time when Dean was this hurt, and their father wasn't around to patch him up. He's uncomfortable with the responsibility of his brother's well being, but he will not shy away from it.

Dean shakes his head. "No, Sam. No hospital. We don't have the money, and ghost hunting doesn't come with a health plan," he says, with no inflection in his tone. As if he is merely reading a line off of a piece of paper. Sam frowns.

"You're obviously in pain."

"Of course I'm in pain, you little shit! You shot me with a fucking shotgun!"

The words are out of his mouth before he has a hope of stopping them. For Sam's credit, the only response he gives is a slight rising of his eyebrows. He wants to call Dean on it; the outburst is an obvious sign that he has not forgiven all that he says he has. But the fact that he did it at all, Dean, who despite appearances, always has such an iron grip control on his emotions, worries Sam more than angers him. Dean doesn't like looking weak, and in his eyes, that's what sickness and injury are. He gets testy when he thinks his macho image is at risk.

"And I apologized for it," Sam says, and is proud of his even tone. "I'm not going to drop it because you cussed at me, asshole. I'm not nine anymore."

He vows to deal with all of this, with every last little bit of tension and argument between them, in a long, endless chick flick moment if Dean will just be all right. Because as much as he insists he is a grown up, and not the child Dean remembers, seeing his older brother in such pain, and in such a fragile state is more upsetting to Sam than he will ever admit.

Dean sighs as heavily as he can without inflicting further pain upon himself. "That was outta line. Sorry, Sammy. But no hospitals. You stop to think about what you'd tell them? You bring a guy in with a shotgun wound, made with rock salt, no less, and they're gonna start asking questions. You thought about what you'd say to them? What if they brought in the police? There wouldn't be anyone to help you out."

He doesn't add that Sam's the worst liar he has ever seen, because he doesn't need to. Sam knows that what he considers to be honesty and a good moral compass, his family considers being a weakness. Dean had ribbed him endlessly when they were growing up, about Sam's inability to tell even the most whitest of fibs. It had been annoying back then, but now it is just damn frustrating.

He knows Dean's right. Getting thrown in jail while his brother is incapacitated will do neither of them any good.

"Just let me get in the shower," Dean says, making as if he's preparing himself to stand. "Then we'll get on the road, and put all of this in the rear view mirror."

Sam is shaking his head before he's got all his words out. "No way. Absolutely not. Dean, you can't even stand. How are you supposed to drive?"

Dean glances up at his brother's face, sees the raw determination there, and pointedly looks away. He closes his eyes again, though this time not in physical pain. "You could drive," he says quietly.

Sam is immediately taken aback. It's not exactly unheard of for Dean to offer him the keys, but when he does, it's usually in an attempt to bring Sam out of whatever funk he's fallen into. He never backs away from the wheel for an injury. In his warped mind, he would see that as an admission to pain, and that is something Dean Winchester never willingly gives.

Sam just shakes his head. "The fact that you even said that tells me you're not up to it. I'm not doing it."

"Well, then," Dean says, scooting closer to the edge of the bed, "it's a good think you're not in charge. I say we're going, and my oldest brother vote trumps your baby-girl-weak-as-a-kitten vote."

Sam rolls his eyes. "You ever heard of the one about people living in glass houses? I am the one standing on my own two feet, remember."

Dean ignores the subtle dig, and with a grimace, reaches down to pick up his jacket, where it landed on the floor the night before. He starts patting down the pockets, reaching in and coming up empty every time. When he's frustratingly satisfied the jacket is not holding what he's looking for, he sends a warning glance to Sam.

"Sammy…" Any other day the threatening tone that his big brother is employing is enough to make Sam cave. But when said big brother winces from the simple act of picking his jacket up off the ground, Sam isn't exactly prone to shaking in his sneakers.

He slips a hand into the front pocket of his jeans, and dangles the car keys from his pointer finger. "You want to leave, you're going to have to catch me first."

On a good day, Dean is hard-pressed to compete with Sam's speed. Sam, who was gifted with legs like a gazelle at birth. The older Winchester knows too well that even if he could stand, he couldn't run, and even if he could run, there is no way he could wrestle the keys away from Sam.

His shoulders slump. "Fine, bitch. We'll stay here. But you'd better hope this thing kills me, because if not, as soon as I'm better I'm going to kick your ass into next month."

Dean closes his eyes, missing the flash of hurt and guilt that briefly appears on Sam's face.

"Uh, are you hungry?" Sam asks, not wanting Dean to read too much into the silence that follows. "I went to the store earlier."

Dean cracks open an eye. "Whadya get?"

Sam smirks, thanking whatever higher power there might be for his brother's predictability. He hops over the bed, landing lightly next to the table on which rests the food he picked up earlier. He names each item as he removes it from the bag.

"I got pop tarts, chocolate of course-"

"Is there any other kind?" Dean pipes up from the bed.

"-A banana, an apple, the orange juice, of course…and some coffee."

"Well, gee, it might be a little hard to decide. The selection is far too vast." Dean's tone is very nearly dripping with sarcasm. Sam looks pointedly at the paper bag still holding the cheeseburger and fries on the night table that was ignored or simply unnoticed the night before, but Dean isn't facing him, and so the significance is lost on him.

"Yeah, sorry about that. I haven't ripped anybody off with a credit card scam, so I was a little low on funding."

He meant it as a joke, a kind of comeback for Dean's censure, but when he looks over, he doesn't see his older brother laughing.

"If you needed money, Sam, you could've asked me."

The offer is generous, so Sam refrains from saying he would rather use his own than something stolen from someone else. And despite Dean's rational for ripping people off, that's exactly what credit card fraud is: theft.

"It's fine," he says in response. And quickly changes the subject. "You want the banana? You should probably have some fruit, you know, to help you heal?"

Dean doesn't reply right away. He appears to be deep in thought, or brooding about something, which he is not predisposed to do. The playful banter from earlier has vanished; if ever a mood has needed lightening, it's this one.

"Go, banana!" Sam cries, in a high-pitched mockery of his own voice. He tosses the banana on the bed, as if trying to bowl with it. Not being round, however, it doesn't get far.

It does get a reaction though. Dean opens one eye, and casts a curious look in Sam's direction, as if questioning his brother's state of mind, and level of insanity.

Sam can't help but grin. "You know, that Simpson's episode, when the kids on the bus are having a race with fruit? Ralph Wiggims tries to use a banana? The Lord of the Flies one."

Dean closes his eyes again with a shake of his head, and a ghost of a smile. "I know where it's from. I'm just wondering why you're quoting the Simpson's, and what you've done with the real Sam."

Sam laughs, and it feels surprisingly good. When he stops to think about it, he misses the easy banter that used to happen between the two. When he was younger, and spent time with Dean, even when hunting a laugh was never far away. He can't even count all the times they were scolded for giggling when they should've been focused on killing something. He looks over at Dean, and sees his own pleasure reflected in his face.

If he had known what was to come, he might've tried to prolong the moment.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Again, many thanks for the great feedback! I'm so relieved everyone likes it. I blame my newly discovered obsession solely on Jensen Ackles and Jared Padelacki. I want to know who the hell said they had to do such an incredible job with those characters.

Anyways, as before, eternal thanks to Monica, both for beta-ing and for her wonderful ear. Or, uh, eye, I guess, as this case might be.

Let me know what everyone thinks!

* * *

He wakes with a gasp, startled from a dream in which Sam was advancing on him with the knife Dean gave him for his thirteenth birthday.

It's dark again, the room palely lit from streetlamps and the moon; Dean must've slept through the rest of the day, and into the night. Through the harshness of his own breathing, he can hear Sam snoring softly in the second bed. However light a sleeper Sam had been as a child, it's clear that living in a dorm at college cleansed him of that particular habit.

Dean takes hold of the sheets around him, focusing on the feel of the linen beneath his hands as he tries to calm his heart rate, and his breathing. '_It was only a dream,' _he tells himself, as forcefully as he dares. '_Sam doesn't hate you, and he certainly doesn't want you dead.'_

His body slowly begins to respond. The pain he felt with every breath earlier in the day has worsened, but it's nothing compared to the pressure in his bladder from spending two days in bed without any bathroom breaks.

Having been painfully educated in what his battered chest can handle just the day before, Dean manages to get up without screaming. He stands with the ease of a ninety-year old arthritic man, and shuffles to the bathroom with about as much speed.

Sam is sitting up in bed when he comes out, blinking owlishly at him. "Are you okay?"

Dean rolls his eyes at the redundancy, same question, different time of day. He doesn't heal miraculously; if he hurt eight hours ago, chances are he's still hurt.

"Fine, Sammy. Just taking a piss."

His brother wrinkles his nose at his vulgarity, but doesn't otherwise complain. That keys Dean into just how much he is being worried over. Sam only gives up on trying to educate him in the matter of good manners when there are more pressing things on his mind. Which, considering their lifestyle, is pretty much all the time.

"I should be asking you that," he says, sitting down slowly. He doesn't quite hide the grimace. "You're the one with the awful nightmares. You sleeping okay?"

Sam looks thoughtful, like he's actually thinking about it, rather than automatically answering in the negative. Eventually he nods. "Yeah, I am."

Dean surprises himself by being a little annoyed by that. Seeing his girlfriend murdered gives the kid nightmares, but shooting his brother with a shotgun at point blank range isn't traumatic enough? No, of course not. He probably sleeps better with that memory, since he's clearly hated Dean all his life.

But that is a path that Dean is really not going to go down. Not now, and not ever. He closes his eyes, rubs his hand roughly over his chin, and deliberately pushes the thought out of his mind. The asylum is over and done with. Sam doesn't seem to have any hang-ups about it; why should Dean?

"Good." He braces himself, and leans back slowly until he's lying on his back again, feet on the floor.

"Dean."

He really doesn't want to look over, he doesn't want Sam to see the emotions that are probably written clearly all over his face, but there's enough of _something _in his brother's tone that he knows he has to. Sam isn't able to detach himself from everything as well as Dean can; the older Winchester wishes he could blame it on Stanford and his time away from his family, but Sam has always been a little sensitive. Every once in a while, he needs the emotional connections that Dean avoids so carefully.

When he does look over, he can't make out any details in Sam's face, because of the back lighting from the window. But that doesn't matter, because he doesn't need to see the guilt to know it's there.

"I…I see it all over again when I close my eyes, it's like it's burned onto the back of my eyelids. The look on your face… I don't know why I'm not dreaming about it, but I haven't forgotten. I never will."

His words are a strange sort of comfort. They see a lot of weird shit in their job, and Dean supposes a part of him worries that Sam will become desensitized to it all, and in doing that will lose whatever it is about him that makes him _Sam. _In Dean's mind, a Sam who isn't affected by all of this isn't really his Sam at all. And he knows that's a horribly selfish viewpoint, wishing more nightmares on his younger brother so he can feel a greater connection to him. But it's not that simple. Between them, it's never that simple.

"I know, Sammy," he says softly. "I know." Sam doesn't correct the nickname, and Dean allows himself that small victory.

He pulls his feet up onto the bed, and slowly moves back until his head is on the pillow. The ache is returning slowly, the ibuprofen from earlier is beginning to wear off. Dean closes his eyes, and covers his face with a forearm. He wants to shut out the pain, both physical and emotional, that remain as a reminder of how he failed at the Rockford Asylum. He doesn't want to remember it, he doesn't want Sam to remember; he wants to go back in time to when he first received the text message on his phone, and delete it before they can begin arguing. But as many things as they've seen proven during their lives, time travel was not one of them.

"Here."

He removes his arm from his face, and opens his eyes to Sam offering a pair of ibuprofen in the palm of his hand. Dean accepts them without comment, and dry-swallows them before his brother can pour him more orange juice.

"Thanks," he says gruffly. He covers his eyes with his arm once more, and startles when something small and light lands on his stomach. "I'm not hungry, Sam." He doesn't need to open his eyes to know that Sam threw a package of pop tarts at him. They practically grew up on the sugar laden wannabe pastries when they were kids, and the crinkling of the wrapper triggers memories from his young adulthood, which pretty much started the day his mother was killed.

"Tough shit," Sam says, and that makes Dean open his eyes and look over. Sam has his 'we're-playing-by-my-rules-and-if-you-don't-like-it-too-bad-because-I'm-the-healthy-one' expression on his face, and if the damn pills didn't make Dean so groggy, he might've tried to fight. But he was in no mood for an argument, and instead rips open the metallic cellophane and pulls out a pop tart.

Sam manages to hide his surprise at having been listened to for once, and doesn't even protest when Dean hands the second pop tart back. The brothers eat in silence, each eyeing the other to make sure every last crumb is consumed. When both are satisfied, Sam collects the garbage and deposits it in the room's only trash receptacle.

"Dean," he says, with his back to his brother. "I want to have a look at your chest."

Dean thinks for a minute, wants to go for the sarcastic comeback to ease the tension, but then decides on a different route. "No, Sam. It's fine."

Sam whirls around, his hands on his hips and a scowl etched into his face. "It is not 'fine.' When was the last time you spent two days in bed? What about the last time you let me get your pills, or pour you orange juice, or hell, offered to let me drive when you didn't think I was gonna fall apart at the seams? Don't lie there and tell me you're fine! You're full of shit is what you are!"

Dean doesn't want to fight, but being lectured by his brother has always been one of his hot points. He can feel his anger level rising. "You're not looking, Sam. It's not that bad. I already took care of it."

"Oh? Well, I didn't realize you'd grown eyes in the back of your head."

Dean is in no mood to play one of his brother's psychologist-wannabe games. "What the fuck are you talking about? Weren't you there? You hit me in the chest, dummy."

And then Sam reaches around behind him, into his back pocket, and pulls out an achingly familiar piece of purplish-gray fabric. He gives it a shake, and it evolves into a t-shirt. The same t-shirt Dean was wearing when Sam shot him. The same t-shirt that he buried in the bathroom's garbage can right after ripping it away from his wounds.

"You fucking asshole," he whispers. His hands have clenched into fists around the sheets pooling in his lap. While there isn't actually a logical reason for his anger (despite what he feels, the bathroom is neutral territory, and if Sam feels like rooting around in the trash, that's his own prerogative.), he knows it's building to dangerous levels.

Sam shows Dean the front of the t-shirt, with its blood and salt stains, and holes ripped into it. Then, like he's fucking transvestite Vanna White, he flips it over and shows him the back. Though it's lacking in salt stains, it doesn't look much better than the front. Dean attributes this to the wall he flew through after getting knocked back by the shotgun.

"What, you thought I'd miss the garbage can overflowing with bloody gauze and bandage wrappers?"

"We're not doing this now," Dean says, with a frown and extra emphasis on 'not.' He turns his head away deliberately, hoping for once his brother will see how much he does _not _want to do this, but Sam is not so easily dissuaded.

"Fuck you! We are too doing this now! Dean, you're hurt. You're hurt because I shot you! Please, let me help." The pleading in his voice is almost enough to persuade Dean to give in, but he knows his brother too well. It would tear Sam up to see the kind of damage that had been done. And though Dean may be lacking in many areas of his older sibling support, he is not going to heap unneeded emotional pain on his brother.

He shakes his head again. "I'm not going to give up cause you gave me the fucking puppy dog eyes, and went digging through the damn trash! I'm telling you it's fine! I'm fucking 26, dude, not twelve. If I tell you it's fine, then you'd better fucking believe it's fine!"

Sam's knuckles are turning white around the fists he's making in the t-shirt. How can his brother not understand? He needs to do this. He needs to take some kind of responsibility; he deserves some kind of punishment for what he did. Sam wasn't strong enough to save himself from the spirit of Ellicott, and Dean is the one that paid the price.

"Why do you have to be such an asshole about this? You can't honestly believe you can take care of this kind of damage" -he shakes the t-shirt in his fist in emphasis- "and not need some help." Sam pauses suddenly, tilts his head to the right and frowns softly as something occurs to him. "What would dad say?"

Dean freezes. His fingers are curled so tightly his impossibly short fingernails are biting painfully into the palms of his hands. Fuck Sam. Fuck him for bringing up the one person from who Dean could never refuse an order. Their father has a very Maslow-esque view on injuries; physical wounds always take place before emotional ones.

"Dad would ream you out for putting my feelings ahead of your health, and you know it." Sam stalks closer, perches on the edge of his bed opposite Dean. "I'm always going to blame myself for what happened, Dean. That's not going to change, because it was my fault. I couldn't push away that spirit like you could, and you got punished for my weakness. You hiding your injuries from me isn't going to change that. You've got to understand."

Dean tries to turn over, to ignore his brother properly with his back to him, but his chest is too sore, and his arms are too stiff from being useless for two days. He's unsuccessful. Even more than before, now he really _does not_ want to do this. Fuck Sam for the low blow of bringing up their father. Because Dean knows he's right. Their dad would tell him he's not going to survive long in this life if he continually puts Sam ahead of himself like he's been doing. Although Dean might be loath to admit it, Sam is a grown man. He's no longer the seven-year old boy who cried whenever his big brother got hurt.

Sam watches the aborted movement with concern and sympathy in his eyes, worrying the inside of his bottom lip with his teeth. "Please, Dean. I just…I need to do this. You know?"

Dean's quiet for a long time. His eyes have closed, and just as Sam begins to wonder if he's fallen asleep under the influence of the painkillers, he sighs. As much as he doesn't want to, he understands why Sam might feel he has to see the damage. It's a way of taking ownership for what he did, Dean thinks. He probably would feel the same way, if their positions were switched. Maybe this time, what's best for Sam is exactly what Dean's instincts are telling him not to do. Dean grabs on to the edge of the bed, and though Sam's fingers twitch with wanting to help, he stays where he is as his brother stiffly lifts himself to a sitting position.

It's a hassle to get the t-shirt off, but Dean manages it without help, and is grateful none is offered. When the t-shirt is off and piled unceremoniously on the floor, Sam's gasp goes off like a gunshot in the quiet room. Though the physical pain is none to horrible at the time, Dean winces anyway.

"Jesus, Dean." His voice is breathy and soft, like he can't quite believe what he's seeing. His brown eyes are like dinner plates, wide and shining and disbelieving at the same time. "Shit."

The mass of bruising on his chest is like a who's who of rainbow colours. The center, where he took the brunt of the attack thanks to Sam's impeccable aim, is differing shades of black, blue, and red. Although the bruising covers the majority of his torso, it wanes towards the sides, turning green, and an awful shade of yellow before vanishing completely. Small pockmarks also mar the flesh, where the rock salt must've dug in and tried to make itself home. Sam, whose mouth has yet to close, circles the bed to study Dean's back.

Thankfully, the other side isn't nearly as damaged. But Sam's practiced, almost medic standard eye can pick out wooden splinters, and cuts that have already become infected. He frowns, tries to forget that it was his hand that caused these injuries, and hurries into the bathroom to grab the first aid kit.

"Shit, Dean," he says, dropping the case on the bed and flipping it open. "Why the hell didn't you tell me it was this bad?"

Dean can only snort sarcastically. He had planned on never having this conversation, and if he had been more himself, he would've been able to hold to that plan. He knows how his brother likes to hold on to his guilt, to keep it to himself until it festers into shaking hands, or nightmares, or something even worse.

Sam tosses the bottle of ibuprofen over Dean's shoulder, and it lands in his lap. "I've gotta take these splinters out. You might want to take a couple more of those."

Dean appreciates that this is probably going to hurt considerably, but nonetheless, he forgoes the pills. This is the part of the job that makes it real for him. Without the pain, dealing with the things he does day in and day out, he might begin to question the reality of it all. So when Sam starts digging into his flesh with a pair of tweezers, methodically searching out and removing every last trace of foreign object, Dean winces, sucks in a breath and holds it, but does not flinch. The pain makes him alive, gives him something to hold on to when nothing seems real, and his brother is too far away on the other side of their self-made chasm. He needs the pain. Without it, he might be a spirit himself.

Once satisfied that the only things left in his brother's flesh belong there, Sam carefully applies a thin layer of antibacterial cream, and bandages the wounds that are deep enough to require it. Although he is fully capable of dealing with it, he's nonetheless grateful nothing needs stitches.

As bad as Dean's chest looks, Sam takes comfort in knowing that at least his brother is caring for himself. The cuts are obviously clean, and he can see the remainder of the antibacterial cream that was not absorbed into his skin.

"Okay," he says, patting Dean lightly on the shoulder. "I'm done. You're good."

He moves away to replace everything in the kit, and returns it to the bathroom.

Dean puts his shirt back on, but the movement pulls on something, and he coughs, and it's wet and painful.

"Must be coming down with something," he says, shrugging ruefully at Sam's worried glance, and quietly wiping the blood on the darkness of his boxers. The coughing is getting worse, the blood showing up more often, and Dean is worried, though he would not admit it, not even under threat of death. If he could have just a glimmer of Sam's 'shining', he might've thought a little differently.

* * *

A/N: I promise, all the foreshadowing has a purpose! 


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: This chapter's a little technical. All my knowledge about emergency medicine and procedure I learned from the internet, and Third Watch. I apologize if anything doesn't seem right, and if it doesn't, it might've been on purpose. ;)

It's un-beta-ed, so I apologize for any mistakes.

* * *

Jerked awake from a dream in which Sam was choking him with the electrical plug of a table lamp, Dean sits halfway up in bed before the pain becomes unbearable, and he flops back down. His chest is heaving with exertion and adrenaline leftover from the dream, and the pain that accompanies each breath has sharpened in the past day. He feels reflexive tears well up in his eyes, and spill down to his hairline.

There's a sliver of light coming in through the break in the curtains, and he can hear Sam breathing in the next bed, even over the harsh pants of his own breath. Like earlier, he takes hold of the sheets beneath him to ground himself, tries to concentrate on slowing his heart rate and in turn his breathing.

But unlike earlier, control doesn't come.

Each hitched breath brings greater pain, and the pain brings panic. His heart is pounding in his temples, in his chest; he can feel it all the way down to his fingertips. But if anything, it's getting faster, not slower, and with every breath it's getting harder to take another one. There's an invisible weight sitting on his chest, pushing down and compressing his lungs until all that comes out is a pathetic whine and wheeze.

He tries to call out to Sam, because as much as he wouldn't want to admit it, he thinks he's in trouble. But the words aren't coming, like he's forgotten how to form them, or maybe his body just can't spare the energy.

He wants to cry, because being denied breath is the worst thing in the world, but even deeply ensconced in the throes of panic like he is, his father's teaching reaches him. 'Don't let panic rule you. Pay attention to your surroundings, Dean. There's always something you can use.' Wide hazel eyes as big as dinner plates flicker franticly around the room, dismissing everything as useless before landing on the table lamp sitting on the night table in between the two beds, and Dean recognizes it as his salvation. It's getting harder to concentrate, but he knows he has to wake Sam up, and even with diminished capacity he realizes that the lamp might be the only way.

Spots begin to form in his vision, his brain reacting to the lack of oxygen, and he flails out with a weak arm, reaching desperately for the hideous turquoise monstrosity. The room's quiet despite his panting, but there's a roaring in his ears, and as the lamp remains stubbornly out of reach, he can't help but think he's going to die in this smelly hotel room, in these filthy sheets, while his baby brother sleeps peacefully in the next bed.

* * *

Sam opens his eyes with a start, not sure what woke him up, but overcome with the feeling of something being wrong nonetheless. He can see daylight through the crack in the curtains, and is mildly surprised to realize he slept that long. He props himself up on his elbows, frowning slightly and wiping the sleep from his eyes.

His brother is still in bed; Sam can see his socked feet sticking out under the end of the covers from the corner of his eye. He rises to his knees, leans over to peer out the window. Through the dirty glass, he can see transport trucks lumbering awkwardly down the highway; the sun is shining, and the sky is clear. For all intents and purposes, it's a beautiful day. But that doesn't explain the feeling of dread he has in the pit of his stomach.

And then he hears it.

It sounds like a whimper, but if Sam thinks about it long enough, he might start to realize it sounded suspiciously like his name. He looks back over to his brother, and through the deceptive darkness, he can barely make out an arm flailing in the space above Dean's head.

"Dean?"

Another whimper, and then Sam suddenly goes cold. He knows why he woke up.

He scrambles out of bed, long legs tangling in the comforter, stealing his balance and sending him crashing to his knees on the thin carpet. His head knocks painfully against the Formica night table. Stars explode behind his eyes, but he ignores them, and hauls himself up to his feet, and Dean's side.

The first thing he notices is the bluish tinge to Dean's lips. His brother's hazel eyes are wider than Sam has ever seen, bloodshot and terrified and begging Sam to help him. His chest is heaving, his back nearly arching off the bed with the effort, but as far as Sam can tell, nothing is coming in or out. Dean reaches for his brother, grabs onto his t-shirt with weak hands.

"Oh, my God."

Sam has no idea what to do, but Dean's hands are pawing bonelessly at his chest, pleading silently with him to do something, _anything, _to make it stop. Sam has no idea what will accomplish that, he doesn't even fucking know what's wrong, and all that he can think of is the time when he was five and almost drowned in the pond behind their motel in Arkansas before Dean found him.

He presses shaky fingers against Dean's neck, searching for a pulse that might reveal to him what needs to be done, like some kind of messed up Morse code in dots and dashes. But Dean's heart is racing way too fast beneath Sam's fingertips for him to figure anything out.

He lunges for the night table, grabs Dean's cell off the top and flips it open. They've been raised with the training that would enable them to deal with most medical emergencies, but this is too much. This is over Sam's head, and he's not willing to risk his brother's life on the assumption that it will fix itself.

His hands are shaking so badly he misdials twice, and on the third try, Dean's hand comes up and limply slaps the phone out of Sam's grasp.

"Fuck, Dean!"

There isn't enough time for this, for Dean's stupid attempts to save them money, or stop Sam from turning the police onto them. There isn't time when Dean's complexion is getting paler with every passing second, when his hold on Sam's t-shirt is weakening. Sam hates that even when Dean's suffocating right before his eyes, his brother still has enough presence of mind to be a controlling asshole.

He scrambles on the bedspread for the phone, and this time Dean doesn't have the strength to dissuade him. Sam dials the number, and waits with growing dread for someone to pick up.

"Hold on, bro," he says, pressing his hand onto Dean's shoulder. "Try to relax." And even as he's saying it, he's aware of how stupid it sounds. But it doesn't matter, because Dean's in no position to comment, and there's suddenly a voice on the other end of the phone.

"911. What's your emergency?"

"It's my brother. I just woke up and he can't breath. God, his lips are turning blue, please, you have to send someone. I don't know what to do."

His heart is knocking against his ribs so hard he fears it might be difficult for the operator to hear him. Dean's hand slips from Sam's shirt, and falls limply to the bed. His lips are moving, like he's trying to communicate something, but no sounds are coming out.

"Where are you, son?"

"Oh, God, uh, the Motel Six on Route 9. Room number 7. Please hurry, there's no one else…"

"Okay, there's an ambulance on the way. You need to stay on the line, don't hang up."

Sam drops the phone to the bed, and places one hand on either side of Dean's neck. "Listen to me," he says, leaning down until their foreheads touch. He waits a half second for his brother's hazel eyes to focus on him. They're red rimmed, bloodshot, and a little glazed over, but Sam knows he has his attention. "You are going to be fine, you hear me? The ambulance is on the way, you just gotta hang on a little longer." Small droplets of water land on Dean's cheeks, and without thinking Sam thumbs them away. He doesn't realize they're his own tears. "You got that? You are not going to leave me, Dean!"

Dean tries to nod, but his eyes are beginning to fall closed. Sam grabs the front of Dean's t-shirt.

"Dean!" he screams, his voice breaking and frantic. "Don't you fucking do this! God, Dean, please!"

His brother is trembling, his neck chords distended and huge. But as Sam watches him, pleads with him, Dean starts to grow limp, the battle he's fighting with himself is coming to an end.

"Please don't do this." Sam's fingers tighten in the cloth of Dean's shirt. He's crying, not making a sound but great big drops of salt water are spilling down his cheeks. "Please, I need you." His head falls to Dean's chest, which is now frighteningly still. "You can't leave me. You're the only one…I can't do this on my own."

A part of him is waiting for a response, expecting Dean to come back with something sarcastic and snide, and just this side of painful, but nothing comes. His brother remains motionless beneath him.

"God, Dean."

One arm snakes out, wraps around the back of his brother's neck and pulls him close. He begins to cry in earnest now, sobbing with such force he feels an ache in his chest and stomach. This can't be happening. It doesn't make sense. Dean is invincible; the one who comes back from incredible injuries with a witty quip, a nasty scar, and a lesson learned the hard way. He doesn't suffocate to death, while his oblivious younger brother sleeps in the next bed.

A hand touches his shoulder, and Sam flies back, taking Dean with him.

"Did you call the paramedics, buddy?" the closest, and clearly younger of the two men asks. Sam wants to shout, to yell and scream and curse in this stranger's face, because it's so bloody obvious it's too late, that they took too long to get there, and now his brother's dead, and his dad's gone, and he's all alone. He can only nod. His chin bumps against the top of Dean's head.

The other man crosses to the other side of the bed. "Let me see him," he says, reaching out with latex gloved hands. His fingers barely brush Dean's shoulders before Sam erupts.

"Don't you touch him! Don't you fucking touch him! You're too late! God, it's too late! He's gone, he left me, he said he never would, he promised he never would, but he did and now it's just me and I don't know what to do. Oh, Jesus, I'll have to call dad."

He wraps his other arm around Dean's shoulders, and then he's crying again, face pressed into his brother's neck. He feels like he's being hollowed out, every last thing that makes him who he is, is spilling out of him, through his eyes and running down his cheeks. The pain he felt from Jessica's death is a mild annoyance compared to this agony.

"Listen to me, son," one of the paramedics says. He kneels on the bed next to Sam, and carefully lays a hand on his arm. "We have to have a look at him. Sometimes it looks like it's too late, but we can still help. All right? Let us look at him."

It takes a few seconds for the words to sink in, and Sam still doesn't understand completely, but all he hears is that Dean might not be gone. He backs off as though he were burned.

The paramedics set to work, opening their bags and pulling out various instruments. They speak in a medical language that flies over Sam's head, peering into Dean's eyes with a penlight, listening to his chest with a stethoscope. When they cut down the middle of Dean's t-shirt, and tape small circular electrotrodes to either side of his chest, Sam begins to pace. He winces with every shock. He knows he should be thinking about what to do now, how to get in touch with their father, how to deal with the inevitable police, but the only thought in his mind is the memory of a nine-year old Dean, kneeling in front of Sam and tucking a scarf into the collar of his sweater. Sam didn't have an actual winter coat back then, but that didn't stop Dean from trying to keep his brother warm. '_You don't want to catch a cold, Sammy_,' he said, pulling an old wool knit hat down over six-year old Sam's ears. _'We're all outta cough syrup.'_

Present day Sam presses the heels of his hands against his eyes. This isn't happening. This _can't_ be happening, It's only a nightmare. The worst one he's ever had, and probably ever will, but any minute now, he's going to wake up in bed, sweat pouring down his face, to his brother's predictable concern and inescapable 'you okay?' But even as Sam's thinking it, he knows it can't be true. Not even his sub-conscious is this cruel.

The medics are keeping up a constant chatter between themselves, and Sam doesn't hear any of it, but the words, "I've got a pulse!" manage to pierce through his mental fog. He's at Dean's side in an instant, sitting on the edge of the other bed, close enough to Dean but outside the medic's sphere of work. He reaches out and snags his brother's hand, holding it tightly between his own.

The older paramedic is listening to Dean's chest again. "I've got decreased, very shallow breathing sounds on the right-" he pauses, switches to the other side "-and nothing on the left."

"Check out the bruising." The other man indicates the shotgun-induced markings on Dean's chest. "You thinking what I'm thinking?"

The older of the two turns and captures Sam with a withering stare. "Do you know how these bruises got here?"

"I…" Sam starts to tell the man that he shot his brother in the chest with a shell full of rock salt, but he catches the words before the truth can come out. He doesn't much care about himself at this point, but Dean would be _pissed _to wake up and learn Sam had been carted off to jail while he was out. And Sam might not be a lawyer yet, but he is pretty sure shooting someone with a shotgun, regardless of what ammo is used or what spirit was influencing him, is generally considered to be attempted murder. "I don't know," he answers finally. "Dean's my brother, but I…uh…I don't know what happened."

The paramedic looks doubtful, but there are more pressing issues with which to concern himself. He turns back to Dean, and resumes work. Sam is quickly forgotten.

He watches with a somewhat obstructed view as they fix a breathing mask over Dean's mouth and nose, and begin pumping air into his lungs by way of a squeeze pump. There's more nearly indecipherable medical jargon, but he catches the word, "breathing valve" and his heart skips a beat in his chest.

The older medic pulls something out of his pack, rips the plastic off it, and Sam doesn't want to watch anymore. His gaze drops instead to Dean's hand. It's pale and cold, still wrapped in Sam's own and disturbingly still. Sam closes his eyes against the sight. In his mind, he sees the same hand, though considerably smaller and less weathered. The hand that even at the age of thirteen, was capable of staking a vampire through the heart, shooting off a .45 with little thought for the recoil, and killing any number of beasties in any number of ways. But it was the same hand that cleaned Sam's scrapes so it didn't even hurt, washed his hair when he was too small to do it himself, and made him peanut butter and jelly sandwiches when their father fell asleep on the couch before dinner.

It is the same hand that squeezes Sam's fingers now.

That squeeze, combined with the shuddered gasp that bursts from Dean's lips, startles Sam so badly he drops his brother's hand and nearly falls off the bed.

"We gotta run," one of the medics says. "You coming with us, son?"

Sam looks up with wide eyes. In the time he spent lost in memories, they had strapped Dean to a bright red backboard and secured him with wide white straps. The older medic is still kneeling next to Dean, squeezing the bright blue pump still held over Dean's face and looking at Sam expectantly. As Sam nods emphatically, the younger medic comes through the open door, pushing a collapsible gurney.

"Then we have to go now. Do you need to grab anything?"

Sam starts to shake his head before remembering he's still in nothing but boxers and a t-shirt with no shoes. He shoves his feet into a pair of boots, grabs his jeans and Dean's leather jacket off the room's chair. He follows closely behind as they wheel his brother out to the waiting ambulance.

A crowd has gathered in the parking lot, attracted by the flashing lights and possibility of death or dismemberment. Sam feels a sharp bite of disdain for the curious eyes grazing over Dean's unconscious body, but he doesn't spare them any more thought.

The paramedics load Dean into the back of the ambulance, then the older one runs around the front to climb into the drivers seat. Sam scrambles into the back, sitting down on a bench across from the other medic, with Dean lying prone between them. The doors are closed, the engine started, and the ambulance starts moving with a lurch.

Sam captures Dean's hand again. His brother's fingers are still cold and unmoving, but this time Sam can feel his pulse working away by pressing two fingers to the inside of Dean's wrist. At this sign of life, he blows out an explosive breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

On the other side of the ambulance, the younger paramedic flicks his gaze over to Sam, and smiles tightly. "What's your name, kid?" he says, and Sam almost points out the fact that he can't be much older than this 'kid.'

"Sam. Uh, this is my brother Dean."

The paramedic nods. "I remember. From earlier. My name's Ben, Sam."

Sam nods. He doesn't want to be impolite, one of his personality weaknesses, Dean would say if he were in the position to, but he's really, _really_ not in the mood for small talk. He doesn't care what this man's name is, so long as he fixes Dean and he does it right.

"You can put your pants on, Sam," Ben says, indicating the discarded jeans in Sam's lap. "You brother's pretty out of it; I don't think he'd mind if you let go of his hand long enough to do that."

The words themselves might seem to be teasing, but the tone in which Ben says them is sincere, and kind. Sam glances at him, wondering if Ben is the older, or younger brother in his family. Then he carefully sets Dean's hand down on the gurney beside him, and pulls his jeans on over his boots and boxers.

"He'd kill me if he knew I was doing it," Sam says quietly, picking up Dean's hand once more, and nodding to the meeting of their appendages with his chin. "He hates 'chick flick moments.' He's pretty much got an allergy to anything you would ever find on Oprah or Dr. Phil."

Ben laughs softly, moving his head as though in understanding. "Yeah, it's an older brother thing. I'm the same way myself." He looks up from the portable monitoring machine he hooked Dean up to a few moments ago, and fixes Sam with a serious stare. "But that doesn't mean the feeling itself isn't there."

'_And then I carried you out the front door.' _Dean's words from the week prior echo through Sam's mind, spoken over the rumble of the nearby Kansas highway. Sam knows his older brother loves him, even if he is a little averse to saying it. He might not speak the actual words, but he says them with his actions. Every time he shoves Sam out of the way of some beastie, or gets after him for not finishing his meal, or bugs him about not getting enough sleep.

"I know," Sam says quietly, sniffing messily and tightening his hold on Dean's hand.

"We're almost there. Not too much longer."

He doesn't look up at Ben's reassuring words. For the first time since climbing into the ambulance, he casts his eyes over Dean's face and really _looks. _If Sam didn't know better, he might think his brother is merely sleeping. The lines and wrinkles that are present in his face during his waking hours are gone, melted away with his consciousness, and if not for the flecks of blood around his lips, and the oxygen mask over his face, he might even look peaceful. His short, near military cut hair is ruffled from sleep, in a way only Dean can manage, given the length of said hair. The sheet covering him reaches his chin, and for that Sam is grateful. He's not sure he could stand seeing the bruises on Dean's chest in light of all that has happened.

The paramedic up front calls out a warning, then they're jostled slightly as the ambulance pulls into the parking lot.

"Now, those doors are going to open, and people are going to swarm in and take Dean away, all right? But don't worry. This is the best hospital in the country, and they will take good care of him, okay?"

Sam doesn't have time to acknowledge the warning before the doors are opened from the outside. A slew of strange faces reach out, unlock Dean's gurney from its tracks, and carefully lift him to the ground. Ben goes with them, calling out vitals and other things Sam doesn't have a hope in understanding.

Sam tries to follow, his brother's jacket clenched tightly in his hands, but he's stopped by a couple of nurses in bright pink medical scrubs before he can go too far. They flash him sympathetic looks as Dean disappears behind a set of swinging doors, and calmly point out the waiting room, where he can grab a cup of coffee if he feels like it. He doesn't feel like it.

Instead he paces the small, surprisingly empty room, going from the bank of vending machines to the line of uncomfortable plastic chairs on the other side. He's trying really hard not to think about it, to keep his mind from realizing that he nearly lost his brother tonight, and he very well might still lose him.

Sam has led a largely inconsistent life, living out of suitcases and random motels in small towns around the country for the majority of his developing years. The only constants were his father, and his brother. His father's gone; Sam has no guarantee he's still alive, let alone that he'll ever see him again. If he loses Dean too…

The enormity of what happened belatedly hits him like a ton of bricks, and he crashes to his knees under the weight of it all. Dean must've been struggling for breath for minutes, what had to have seemed like hours, while Sam slept peacefully in the other bed. If Sam hadn't woken up when he did, he would've risen eventually to a dead body in the next bed. The whole reason this was happening is because Sam isn't strong enough, because he couldn't hold back a simple spirit.

His hands fall to the floor at his sides, his chin drops to his chest. The guilt and grief rise up simultaneously, wrapping around his chest like a vice and making it nearly impossible to breath. If (no, when) Dean gets out of this, when they're back on the road and putting it in the rear view mirror, Sam won't be weak again. He will not become a liability. He will be a machine. He will be Dean.

Anything else is unacceptable.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Shortest chapter ever!

It's been a little longer than I had hoped, and you can blame that on a shitty case of writer's block. All these ideas, and none of the skill to write 'em down!

Anyways, my damn teachers are on strike, so maybe I can crank out another chapter before the end of the week. No promises though! And a hearty thank you to all those who reviewed. You guys are my spinach!

* * *

Sam doesn't make it sixty minutes before he slips Dean's coat on.

He knows he looks like a loser, like any one who happens to glance at him would know that he's just an idiot dressing up in his brother's clothes. The leather jacket fits pretty well across the shoulders; Sam is at least as broad as Dean in the upper chest, but narrower through the waist and hips. One might think it is his. Of course, if Dean were to catch him wearing his clothes Sam would never hear the end of it.

Sam hopes Dean catches him, even if it means guaranteed teasing for the rest of his natural life. _Especially_ if it means guaranteed teasing for the rest of his natural life.

It's only been forty-five minutes since they arrived at the hospital, but it feels longer. Sam periodically gazes at the door leading out of the waiting room, as though by keeping his eyes on it, he can wish someone to come through and tell him everything is going to be fine. He wants news on his brother, but at the same time he's afraid to hear it.

He reaches up with shaking hands, and flips the collar of the jacket up. Catching a glimpse of himself in the reflection of a vending machine, he quickly turns it back down. He has no idea how Dean can make it look cool when it still just makes Sam look like a psycho dressing up in clothes that don't belong to him.

The collar smells like Dean, that unmistakable mix of leather, gunpowder, sweat, and the little bit of cologne he puts on when he has to charm information out of some poor, unsuspecting women. The smell bites at Sam, makes his chest hurt, but he doesn't take the jacket off.

Something in the pocket rustles when Sam shifts on the hard plastic chair. He slips his fingers inside, and pulls out a handful of receipts, some from diners they stopped at during their journey, others from gas stations where they filled the Impala. He flips through them, reading the dates and the amount of payment. They're like a jumbled sort of scrapbook, bits and pieces of the last six months of their lives on random slips of paper. There are no real memories involved with the receipts, the numbers typed on their surface are fading fast and hold no real weight for Sam. But like the jacket itself, the papers offer a connection to his brother. At a time when Sam feels so lost and adrift, he grasps desperately at any link to the family that seems so fragile.

He stuffs the receipts back into the pocket, and reaches into the other one. His fingers dance past the car keys, a handful of change, a couple of bills and eventually settle on Dean's cell. He pulls out the familiar flip phone, scratched and dented from heavy use. Sam has his own phone, but like everything else besides Dean's jacket and Sam's jeans, he left it at the motel room.

Sam opens the phone now, wipes the small colour display screen on the knee of his jeans. The background makes Sam frown; it's obviously a candid snapshot taken with the phone's tiny camera. Naturally, it's of Sam, sleeping and dead to the world, head leaning against the car door and mouth hanging open. If he looks closely enough, he can see a line of drool working it's way down his chin and onto the collar of his own jacket. He rolls his eyes, and resolves to bring up this picture, among other things, if –no, when- he talks to Dean again.

Sam selects the phonebook option, and quickly skims through the entries. Most he doesn't know, a few he recognizes as contacts of Dean's and their father's, but he doesn't care about any of those. The cursor pauses next to the sixth entry in the list.

Dad.

His thumb hovers over the little green button, hesitating to depress it and make the connection. Dean would want his father there, Sam knows. His brother hates showing weakness, but at the same time, he derives most of his strength from his family. Even knowing what John Winchester has done to them, both on purpose and inadvertently, Dean would want him there.

Sam sighs heavily, closes the phone and slips it back into the pocket. He can't call him. Not yet, at least. It's too soon. Sam will wait until he learns something about Dean's condition, and then he will call their father. There would be no point in talking to him without having anything to say.

He supposes there's a part of him that's afraid that their father won't come, even with Sam doing the pleading, and Dean lying on what could very well be his deathbed. He wonders what would be worse: watching his brother die with no one beside him, or knowing that Dean left this world with the knowledge that his father didn't care enough to come. Sam ducks his head to his chest, blinking rapidly to dispel the tears that rise with that thought.

"Sam?"

He turns his head away at the sudden voice, sniffing noisily and wiping the remainder of the tears on the shoulder of Dean's jacket. Which he realizes with a start he is still wearing. Face burning crimson, he shrugs out of it and lays it on the seat next to him.

Ben the paramedic is standing over him, holding a cup of steaming coffee in each hand, and perfecting the concerned older brother look. Sam hates seeing that look directed at him from anyone who isn't Dean, but he manages to hold onto the urge to wipe it off the other man's face with a well-placed right jab.

"You okay?"

Sam nods emphatically, for once glad that he let his hair grow long enough to fall over his eyes. He leans forward, rests his elbows on his knees as Ben sits down next to him.

"Thought you could use a little pick-me up." He passes over one Styrofoam cup, and though the coffee is black, just the way Dean likes it but a little too bitter for Sam himself, he takes a deep, grateful gulp. It burns his tongue and the inside of his throat on the way down, but he thinks it's only fitting given the situation.

"You know anything?" He asks Ben, and he'd like to blame the hoarse quality of his voice on the too-hot coffee.

Ben sighs, leans back in his chair and takes a sip from his own cup. "They're still working on him, Sam. It doesn't look good, but the fact that no one's come to talk to you is a good thing. Trust me."

Sam sends him a sidelong glance. He can't quite believe that sitting here going through a thousand possible scenarios could in any way be better than being informed on what's going on. But then he remembers the saying 'no news is good news' and knows that things could be worse. The fact that they're not talking to him must mean they're busy working, and if they weren't busy working, that would mean…He pushes that thought out of his mind before it can materialize. Nothing good lies that way, and he refuses to go down that path.

"Is there someone you can call, Sam? Going through something like this on your own isn't recommended."

Though they're not meant to, the words sting. Sam realizes that he must look like an ordinary college-age kid, one whose mom and dad would come running at a mere phone call, when his reality couldn't be more different. He shakes his head sadly.

"No. No, it's just me and Dean."

Ben nods slowly, taking another drink from his coffee. He seems willing to let that go without further explanation, and for that, Sam is grateful. He doesn't want company, but the fact that Ben is here at all, when he obviously has more important things to do, isn't something Sam is going to cheapen by refusing to answer questions.

"You said earlier that you didn't know how those wounds happened."

Sam turns his head sharply, and sees that Ben is feigning casualness, one arm slung over the back of the chair next to him, and his legs crossed at the ankles. His words and their implications are anything but casual, though.

"I did. And it's as true now as it was then."

Again, Ben nods. He leans forward, rests his elbows on his knees in a mimic of Sam's own posture. "And I believe that. But you have to understand how it looks. Your brother's not in any position to tell us what happened, and you were there with him, in that motel room."

Sam doesn't need anything spelled out for him. He did go to college, after all.

"You called the police. That's what you're trying to say, right? You think it looks like I shot my own brother, and so you called the cops."

Ben's shaking his head before Sam's even finished talking. "No. Not me, Sam. The hospital. The pattern of bruising on Dean's chest is identical to the marks a shotgun leaves. The fact that you were in the room means nothing as far as that goes; the hospital is required by law to call the police when any gun shot victims come in."

He favours Sam with a careful look, one that nearly begs for honesty. "I shouldn't even be telling you this. But something tells me that you're not going to run off and leave your brother here. Am I right, Sam?"

Sam can't find the words, so he nods. Ben continues.

"They're going to want to know everything, Sam. Everything that happened before you woke up to your brother suffocating, and anything you can tell them about what he was doing before you two hooked up. Okay?"

"I didn't know it was that bad." Sam looks down at his hands hanging between his knees, and is perplexed by their shaking. He sets his coffee down on the floor before he drops it. "Dean, he's always been really good at hiding it when he's hurt. When he's really hurt, that is. If he gets a little splinter, or a paper cut, he'll whine about it for as long as he can get away with it, to anyone who will listen. But the real injuries, the ones that can really cause some damage…When he was twelve, he walked around with a broken foot for three days before our dad finally found him out." Sam pauses for a minute. He remembers with perfect clarity how angry their father had been when he caught a glimpse of the damage, before Dean could get his sock on quick enough to conceal it. He remembers how white-faced Dean had been when the doctor was poking and prodding the foot swollen to nearly twice it's size, and he still remembers how Dean winked at him from the gurney as they wheeled him down to x-ray. "I could never understand why he did it. I think he thought he was saving my dad money, and trouble, but it always got worse and cost more once he finally got it taken care of."

He covers his face with shaking hands, and breathes noisily through his fingers. He's forgotten Ben is there at all, so deeply ensconced in memories and emotions he has become. He's no longer answering a question, but merely speaking out loud to hear his own voice. "I knew he was hurt. I knew it, and I tried to get him to go to the hospital, but he was just so damn stubborn. He always is, and I usually fight harder than I did. But it was just easier to let him tell me he was fine. Easier to believe that a couple of ibuprofen chased with orange juice would make him all better. God, I'm a horrible brother."

"You're not a horrible brother." Ben lays a hand on Sam's shoulder, and though the touch isn't entirely unwelcome, Sam flinches beneath it. "You probably have a lifetime of trusting your brother, of listening to him when he tells you to do something. It's not your fault that you believed him. If you want to blame someone, blame whoever shot him."

His words mimic something Dean said to Sam months ago, during the time they spent researching the Bloody Mary legend. 'If you want to blame something, then blame the thing that killed her.' Logically, he has always known that even if he had warned Jessica, he probably couldn't have prevented her death. The same could not be said about Dean's injuries. Ben has no idea how spot on he is with telling Sam to blame the shooter. He already does.

He takes a shaky breath, and straightens up slowly on the chair. "So when are the cops going to get here?"

Ben takes his hand of Sam's shoulder, and his gaze flickers down the hall. "Uh, looks like they're here already."

Sam follows his eye line to where two men in the telltale dark blue uniforms of the police are speaking quietly to a middle-aged woman in bright pink scrubs. She listens to them talk for a few moments, then nods her head and points down the hall in Sam's direction.

Sam picks up the coffee from the floor, and drains it in one smooth gulp. His hands have begun shaking again; he wipes the suddenly sweaty palms on his jeans. He doesn't want to do this; he's never been a convincing liar, even in the best of situations. Dean and their father did it effortlessly, apparently willing to sacrifice their morals for their cause, if those morals even existed in the first place. But to Sam, things had never been that black and white. Every credit card scam, every little white lie told to victims' families, they all added on to Sam's already guilty conscious.

Beside him, apparently mistaking the cause of his nervousness for something else, Ben lays a strong hand on Sam's shoulder again. "Don't worry about it, Sam," he says, speaking under his breath. "You didn't do anything wrong. They just want to know what happened to your brother. You're not in trouble."

Logically, he knows this. The police have no reason to believe Sam is the one who injured his brother. No weapons were left in the motel room; the shotgun Ellicott/Sam had used to shoot Dean is hidden safely in the trunk of the car. Sam knows with conviction that even if he were able, Dean would never point the finger at him.

And while Sam may not be as adept at weaving a complex web of lies and then remembering all those fake details as Dean is, he has to admit to himself that he is certainly no slouch. After all, he does have the experience of lying to someone he loved, consistently and without doubt, something that Dean never had to do. Surely he can handle a couple of strange cops. He has no conceivable reason to be nervous.

And yet, he can feel his heart rate beginning to climb. His sweaty hands give way to trembling, and he hides the offending appendages deep in his pockets. The coffee in his empty stomach that until now had been quiet begins to bubble, and Sam worries he might throw up right here.

The room suddenly throws him for a loop, the floor tilting up beneath him until he loses all sense of up and down. Someone's talking to him, but it's like they're speaking in the wrong end of a megaphone; the sound is so distorted Sam wouldn't have any chance of deciphering it even if his head isn't currently trying to separate from his body. He tries to take a step towards the chair he just vacated, to sit down and regain his equilibrium, but the newly adjusted angle of the floor makes that impossible, and before he can reach out an arm to catch himself, the floor is rushing up to meet his face.


End file.
